Tasting Report: 100 Top 2012 Bordeaux Reds

The 2012 is certainly a sleeper vintage for Bordeaux. I can't think of many vintages that have improved so much after ageing in the cellars of the best wineries of Bordeaux. It is a wonderful year to buy and to drink. Many of the wines are incredibly drinkable now, with ultra-fine tannins and delicate fruit.

The best wines of the vintage hark back to such excellent years as 1962, 1971, 1985 and 2001. All those years were overshadowed by great years before them, but they produced wines with the finesse and delicacy that Bordeaux provides so well. For example, the balanced, beautiful 1962 vintage was dominated by the legendary 1959 and 1961. The 1970 stole the limelight from the 1971, particularly on the Right Bank. And who cared about 1985 when 1982 was one of the modern legends?

“We need to not think about the great 2010 or 2009 vintage when we evaluate the quality of 2012,” says Alexandre Thienpont, the great winemaker of Pomerol, and now Saint-Émilion with his family's L'If property. The tiny vineyard's second vintage is a knockout, showing wonderful depth, harmony and flavour. It was my best red wine of the tasting, along with Ausone. L'If's production is limited to a few hundred cases.

I wrote after tasting the vintage from barrel in spring 2013 that the 2012 vintage was very close to the great 1998 for the Right Bank, and I still believe that's true. There are so many excellent wines from there: half of the wines in this list of top 2012s are Right Bank, 30 from Saint-Émilion and 20 from Pomerol. The earlier-ripening merlot and cabernet franc that predominate in those regions shone through in 2012, which was otherwise hampered by cold, wet weather.

In fact, the growing season was pretty much a nightmare for Bordeaux wine producers. Spring was too cold and wet. Summer had too much heat and too little humidity, and then had the opposite. Most of September and October, it rained too much. Growers complained of disease in the vineyards as well, from oidium to grey rot. And most wineries suffered from lots of rain during the long, late harvest. But they still harvested excellent grapes through severe selection.

“It really is much better than we could have believed,” says Alain Vauthier of Château Ausone. “The wines really improved in barrel.”

Nonetheless, some wine producers, particularly those without the financial means or dedication to make a severe enough selection of grapes and wines to bottle something outstanding, made mediocre wines. That's still the majority of the 8,000 or so producers in Bordeaux. Many of the top-name sweet-wine producers didn't make first wines. So 2012 is not an across-the-board success: be careful in buying – but the top wines are excellent quality.

The 2012 Bordeaux listed below are order first by score (highest to lowest) and then alphabetically.